


not yours

by tinyfingers



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, One Shot, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23157883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyfingers/pseuds/tinyfingers
Summary: mod au/one-two shot: Brienne finds a postcard from Jaime, from before."you can't love me anymore"
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

She finds it at the back of the cupboard when she’s packing her belongings to move out. It’s been three years since she first moved to King’s Landing, and Brienne’s finally felt comfortable enough financially to live somewhere a bit nicer that isn’t in Flea Bottom. 

It’s a little dusty and one corner is creased, even though it’s only been a few months since she chucked it back somewhere she couldn’t see. 

Only a few months since she told him: “You can’t love me anymore.” 

She looks at the postcard he had sent from Casterly Rock, when he had gone home for the summer - his handwriting was terrible as it had always been, a rough scrawl, although he had squeezed more than 15 lines in the card. 

The last still hurt to read, even after all the time that had passed. “Missing you more every day. - Jaime” 

She subconsciously reads out his name to himself, and it still stings, how his name rolls off her teeth softly. She still sees his silhouette, waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase at her apartment block, as he did every morning for those wonderful two years, four months, fifteen days. 

They’d met on the very first day she arrived in the capital city - her first stop had been a hostel on the rougher side of town, and Jaime was the manager there. Golden, handsome and cheeky, she hadn’t guessed that his family owned the entire chain of hostels in the city, and he didn’t say a word. 

Brienne had spent four months living in the hostel, with difficulties finding a studio apartment which was a fair price in the city, and Jaime had made it easier for her to stay - giving her a ‘staff special’ on rates, and they had settled into an easy routine of preparing meals together. Jaime was a decent cook, although his trick was just throwing butter into everything, and she was the only one between them two keeping his fibre intake in balance. 

But she eventually found a place which wasn’t awful, which didn’t have stained carpets, a bed frame which was straight, and with little mould in the toilet. It was cheap, and near a metro station, which made it easy for her to get to the university, where she worked as a research assistant. 

“Why don’t you just continue staying here?” he’d asked, knowing that the single hostel room which he eventually ensured was hers to stay in was miles nicer than the studio she had signed a lease for. It was a long, but doable, walk to UKL, was near two large supermarkets, and had a free gym. 

She’d simply said she needed to do this for herself then - it was a bit about pride, about proving to herself that she could actually live in King’s Landing on her humble salary, that she didn’t have to go back to Tarth to have a proper life. And she didn’t want to be so entirely dependent on him for everything she had - he was already her main source of joy, it didn’t seem fair to make it even more than that. 

She’d let herself fall in love with him - it wasn’t really a choice, Jaime had the kind of personality which swept people off their feet, and as much as she found him too slick, too charming at the start, he’d slowly won her over with his eagerness and enthusiasm. 

“You see things too simply,” she’d told him countless times, when he insisted that problems which money could resolve weren’t quite problems. 

“I see you, and that makes it simple,” he’d often replied. 

She should have known. Nothing about Jaime should have ever been simple. 

But he’d made it so - he was often around at her studio after she moved in, had helped her clean it up. She couldn’t remove the carpet without voiding her deposit, but Jaime had used a good five bottles of carpet cleaner to make it look like it was forest green instead of the mucky brown it had been when she first viewed the unit. 

He’d bring over meals he had prepared when she was busy with work, helped her unclog the toilet when the piping had issues, and would buy her new rolls of toilet paper when she forgot that she’d run out. 

She wonders if she had been blind to it from the start - no man should and could have been so perfect, yet it had never occurred to her to question it.

It wasn’t until their second Christmas together, when Jaime had asked her to join her family for the festivities, that the cracks started to show. 

The way he would angrily snap at his father when the issue about taking over the business came up, the uneasiness she felt when he took up another glass of wine. The looks which he exchanged with his twin. 

Or maybe, just Cersei. 

She wishes she never went for that weekend, never spent the hour after dinner playing with Tommen and his cat out in the garden. Wishes she didn’t end up stepping into a hole which the neighbour’s dog had dug in Cersei’s yard, which had ended with her entire leg being covered with mud. 

Brienne had half-hopped her way into the guest bathroom next to the room which she and Jaime were staying in for that weekend, and she’d overheard low mumbles coming from their room. It was Jaime’s voice, unmistakably.

“How could you bring her here? You never told me you were seeing someone.”

“I don’t have to tell you about every single thing in my life anymore, Cersei. You have your own family now, don’t you?”

“She’s never going to be good enough for our family. I had her looked up, she’s a research assistant? And from Tarth? When are you going to tell her that you have a son?”

“Never, because he isn’t mine.”

“Tell that to her when she realises his DNA is a match for yours.” 

“You wouldn’t. That would break Tommen.” 

“He doesn’t have to know, but she will.” 

Brienne struggles to remember the conversation they had that night - it was mostly angry sobs on her end, and disjointed explanations from Jaime. 

She doesn’t want to hear why his twin’s youngest child is his son. “I don’t need to know, Jaime, I’m not sure I want to bear that burden of knowledge. I couldn’t lie to him about it.” 

He tried to explain that he’d been drunk, stupidly drunk, and that he loved his sister, had loved her more than a brother should have, but he was drunk. 

“You were twenty-eight, Jaime. An adult.”

I love you, he’d pleaded. 

“I can’t do it, Jaime. You can’t love me anymore.”

\--

She knows Jaime will know that she's moving out - he'd been the guarantor for the lease when she'd signed it, because she didn't feel like she and Professor Baratheon were on good enough terms yet, and her fellow research assistant Tormund had even worse credit than she did. 

She doesn't expect him to turn up for the apartment inspection before she officially moves out. But he does - of course he does, because he's been such a part of the apartment too. 

He's wearing the same navy t-shirt he did on weekends, looking no less faded than it had been when she last saw it. But his jeans hang a bit looser off his legs, and he looks a bit more tired than she remembers. 

Jaime turns up with a small van. "I can drive you to your new place, there's enough space for your things, unless you're bringing a mattress with you." 

"It's fine, Jaime, I'll call for a car. I can manage."

"Let me do this, won't you? We can still be... friends, can't we?"

"I don't think so." 

He grabs the two boxes sitting by the stove, and lifts them, walking past her and down the stairs. She sees the grimace when he hits his right hand against the wall when he brushes against the narrow part of the corridor - wonders if his injury has been healing well, before reminding herself that it's not her concern anymore. 

She knows better than to fight him on this. On most things. 

There are two boxes of food in his van which he takes with him when they arrive at her new place - a one-bedroom apartment two streets from the university, which a departing professor was renting out a good price. 

"I made dinner. Humour me?"

She can't quite refuse to let him into the flat, but it feels awkwardly familiar and uncomfortable to have him sit across her at her new dining table. 

"It's a nice place." 

"Was the third place I viewed." 

"Brienne, can we... can we not do this?"

"What are we doing, Jaime?"

"Pretending we don't care for each other. I care about you - I've been wanting to talk to you for months, but I didn't know if I should, and I didn't want to, but I got the letter, and I knew I had to.." 

"You don't have to pretend at anything, Jaime. There's nothing left to pretend at."

He grabs her right hand then - slowly extricates the fork from her tightening grip, and murmurs: "I miss you, Brienne. I'll explain everything, I'm sorry for not telling you before." 

"You didn't have to. But you have to get out, right now." 

He shakes his head, but Jaime gets up, and puts her fork gently on the table. 

"I'm sorry, Brienne." 

"Good bye, Jaime."


	2. but mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have wanted to come by every day.

The message he gets from Brienne’s landlord is a formality, he knows it - he doesn’t actually have to be there when she checks out of her apartment, and Jaime knows that she’s too responsible for there to be issues with her deposit.

But it’s his only opportunity to see her again - since.

He never quite got to tell her his side of things, Brienne had heard the worst of the facts. But he never got to tell her how the person he had been before her wasn’t the same person that had fallen in love with her. Two years, four months and fifteen days, and he never found the time to tell her how she had changed his life.

And her departure from his life had changed things for him too - he gave up trying to fight his father in joining the head office and officially took over their accomodation arm.

No longer did he work the front office at the hostel where they had first met, moving into the top floor office at the Keep which had been kept vacant for him since he completed university, next door to his father’s.

Jaime agonises for too long over what he should wear to meet Brienne at her place - he has a meeting just before, but it doesn’t feel right to wear a suit - she’d once said: “You look just in place in a suit - it’s weird, like this was the skin you were meant to be in.” She didn’t have to say it then, but it was in the midst of all the discussions they had while he was debating going into the main office, and she’d repeatedly said that she didn’t want to be the one holding him back.

Moving to the main office meant a different life - one of engagements and pretences and attempts to get the upper hand over people he had to be friendly with - it was the exact thing he had run to the hostel to escape from. 

From Cersei - he wonders if he will ever tell Tommen about how it happened, how Cersei had been reeling from the discovery of yet another of Robert’s whores, and went into his room, demanding comfort - and he had been drunk, completed wasted after a night out with Tyrion and Bronn. 

He doesn’t quite remember how it happened, but he knows he had held Cersei, he had not worn a condom, and a couple months later Cersei said she was with child and there was little doubt in her mind that Tommen was his. They did a test, shortly after Tommen was born, and Cersei had the doctor sign a NDA after. 

Jaime knows there’s no real way of ever explaining to Brienne how he had such an abhorrent relationship with his sister, his twin sister, and for the longest time he thought it was possible to wipe it all from his memory and the rest of the world. So he had avoided Cersei the best he could while Tommen was growing up, although it was undeniable that the boy looked a lot like him, they had the same eyes, nose, even if Tommen was a little rounder in the cheeks. 

But he tries, anyway. He drafts a note in his computer two weeks after Brienne walked out of Cersei’s house and stopped replying to all his messages; it sits in his drafts, even after all this time, but it was never right. He tries to think about how he can best explain it to her in person, but he knows - Brienne wouldn’t want to hear it. He’s not sure he wants to say it out, even. 

So Jaime throws on a navy tee that has been sitting in the bottom of his drawer for months, he hasn’t worn it since they were together, it always felt like  _ their  _ weekend shirt, because they’d take turns wearing it and it fit them both perfectly. 

He guesses that Brienne wouldn’t have time to eat that day. She’s always skipped meals when she was busy, and he knows he’s got some chicken in the fridge, and a fair amount of kale.  _ Roasted chicken, sweet potato mash, and steamed kale - it was one of the meals which Brienne had made for him when they first started preparing meals together, because chicken was the cheapest protein they could get at the nearby supermarket and kale was one of the few vegetables he wasn’t opposed to, even if he only took one bite if he really had to. Sweet potato had been their favourite staple - it wasn’t as cheap as the waxy potatoes that they sold by the pound, but cheap enough, and Jaime’s favourite was when Brienne put lots of paprika in the mash.  _ He adds a little less paprika for one portion, and puts the two boxes of food in an insulated bag for the ride.

He borrows Bronn’s van, only mumbling something vague about running an errand when Bronn shoots him a weird look and asks if he needs a getaway vehicle instead. He’s not quite sure that Brienne would even get in a vehicle with him, but he tries, anyway, it’s better than nothing. 

Her apartment building looks the same as it always did, a little less run-down than the others around it, yet the mess of rubbish bags strewn by the road suggesting that it was just as awful on the inside. 

Jaime’s there exactly at 3pm, and Brienne looks taken aback when he turns up at her door, not needing to knock because the door was already ajar. 

He pokes his head in, the landlord was just doing his final checks, and asks for his signature on a line which was scrawled in pencil. 

“Hey,” he starts, not quite knowing if Brienne would kick him out the next second. 

“You didn’t need to come.” She cuts him off, her eyes focussed on his right shoulder. 

_ I have wanted to come by every day for months _ , he wants to say, but he knows it’s never going to be right for that. 

“I’ve got a van, I can drive you to your new place, there's enough space for your things,” he tells her, and she tries to turn him down, but Jaime turns on his most persistent self, refusing to budge, until he sees two boxes in the kitchen, and simply walks over and picks them up. 

He glances at her, wearing a look which says “I’m doing this anyway”, but she doesn’t look at him.  _ She doesn’t look at me at all _ . 

His right hand slaps against the wall when he walks through the corridor - he’d always been good at avoiding that narrow bit when he came by previously, but the months of disuse has dulled his spatial memory. 

“I made dinner. Humour me?” He holds out the two boxes of food when they arrive at her new place, it’s nearer to the university, and looks like it’s where plenty of graduate students would reside. 

He thinks he spots a small smile when she realises what he’s made, and they eat in silence for a while. It feels awkward, unfamiliar, yet there is a certain warmth that he gets just from sitting across her, remembering all the meals they used to share. 

_ I just want to go back to those days. Surely you miss them too? _

“Brienne, can we… can we not do this?”

"What are we doing, Jaime?"

He wants to grab her then, hold her, tell her how much he has wanted to talk to her, hear her voice, see her eyes, even if they were only full of disappointment the last time they parted and he can’t read her eyes anymore. 

"Pretending we don't care for each other. I care about you - I've been wanting to talk to you for months, but I didn't know if I should, and I didn't want to, but I got the letter, and I knew I had to.." 

"You don't have to pretend at anything, Jaime. There's nothing left to pretend at,” she inserts, looking him squarely in the eye, and the undertones in her voice are clear -  _ you had all the time to be honest, you spent all that time pretending not to be who you really were.  _

Jaime reaches for her right hand, and takes the fork from her hand, he feels her fingers tightening around the metal, but all he can think about how her hand feels so warm, and wishes he could hold it for just a while longer. 

“I miss you, Brienne.” He looks at her, and she’s avoiding his gaze now, but she hasn’t made an attempt to take her hand away. 

“I’ll explain everything, I’m sorry for not telling you before.” 

An angry look flashes across her face, and she shakes her head slowly. “You could have, Jaime. All that time? But I don’t know where you could have begun, you didn’t have to.” 

She pauses, and pulls her hand back, clasping her hands together as though to restore them back to normal,  _ pre-him _ . 

"But you have to get out, right now." 

He swallows, and tries to start, but he can’t find the right words and maybe there are none, maybe this was all a mistake. In some other world this would have been just another Thursday, and he would have been beat tired from a long shift and all they both would have wanted was to snuggle on the couch and watch silly episodes of their favourite reality shows.

Jaime gets up, and puts the fork which he had taken from her hand back next to the box of food, which she’s eaten half of. The sweet potato is nearly finished. 

"I'm sorry, Brienne." He looks at her pleadingly, wanting her to acknowledge his apology, give him an opening, anything. 

"Good bye, Jaime." She doesn’t even look at him then, simply looks down at her box of food.

He walks towards the door, and looks back at her rear profile, but she hasn’t turned around,  _ won’t be turning around _ . 

“I love you, I’ll always be yours, you know that,” he says, walking over to her and dropping to his knees. "I'm sorry." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.5 shot? maybe more?


End file.
